Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Thank you, so, so much, for all the love and support you guys gave me on release day. I truly do have the most amazing fans and friends in the whole world and I am so grateful for everything you've done to make the Tempest books a success. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Here's another excerpt, just to keep you interested ....

You know,
she continued, usually, the more time
passes after a mermaid’s seventeenth birthday, the more powers she gets. That
you had so much power so quickly made me think that you were going to have a
lot of surprises in store for us.

She quirked one perfectly shaped eyebrow and I
couldn’t help it.I thought of the
electricity thing I’d done with Tiamat’s goons.

Of Kona explaining how rare that kind of magic
was.

Of the voice deep inside myself that had warned me
not to tell Hailana.

Did Hailana somehow know about it?Had I slipped up in practice, used it without
realizing?I racked my brain, tried to
think of every move I’d made, but nothing came to mind.I didn’t remember wielding electricity
against Sabyn or anyone else he’d brought in to train with us.Except …

Except that nearly every time Sabyn touched me, we
both lit up like the Electric Light Parade my mother used to drag us to see at
Disneyland every summer.I’d thought it
was a training thing, something that wasn’t all that unusual.But what if it was the giveaway? Was that bizarre
reaction between us what had tipped off Sabyn, andin turn, Hailana?

I fought the urge to scream in frustration.I hated this.Hated not knowing all the things I should, all the bits and pieces that
went into life down here.On land, it
wasn’t easy—especially with all the mermaid stuff that had grown almost
impossible to hide—but at least up there I understood what was expected of
me.What I needed to do to keep myself
safe and sane.Down below, it was a
whole different story, and I kept feeling like I was a couple scenes behind the
pack.

I studied Hailana, tried to gauge what she was
getting at.If she were fishing, and I
didn’t react to it, maybe she would let the subject drop.I hoped so, because everything inside of me
said that if she knew of my most recent talent, how easily I had killed those
men, that I would find myself following even more closely in my mother’s
footsteps.

I didn’t want to do that, couldn’t do that.For seven
years I’d sworn I wouldn’t be like my mother, wouldn’t make the same choices
she had.And yet, here I was, in her
city, with her queen, living her life—or as close to it as Hailana could get
me.Again I thought of those people I’d
seen my mother kill remorselessly, again I shoved the memory away.

Tried to focus instead on the problem at hand.

I didn’t know what to do, didn’t have a clue what
to say to her.I needed Kona, who knew
so much more about this life than I did.I had questions for him, needed answers, but he was so wrapped up in
protecting me from the perceived threat of Sabyn that he’d forgotten the ways
in which I really needed him.

If only there was some way—

Tempest?Are you listening to me?Hailana’s voice, much sharper than it had
been before, dragged me back to the present. From the impatient look on her
face she’d been talking for quite some time, while I’d been drifting in La La
Land, trying to make some sense of the world that was slowly crumbling around
me.

Sorry,
Hailana.It’s been a rough couple of
days.Sabyn’s a tough trainer.

That’s why
he’s good for you.Jared wasn’t pushing
you, and that isn’t going to do us any good.When Tiamat comes back for you, she’s going to come with everything
she’s got.

I know.It was pretty hard to forget, what with
everyone reminding me of that fact every time I turned around.

There was a long silence as the merQueen waited
for me to say what I had come to say.But it was harder than I thought to just blurt it out, now that I was in
front of her.Looking down, I traced
patterns on Hailana’s desk as I tried to get my thoughts in order.

Are you
okay, Tempest?she finally asked.

Yeah, of
course. I was just …I looked up
into her narrowed gaze and knew that it was now or never.If I didn’t ask her my questions soon, I
never would.Did you choose Sabyn on purpose?Because you knew it would upset Kona?

Mmmmm, now
we get to the heart of the matter.Is
the selkie prince threatened by such a young, handsome merman spending so much
time with you?

The selkie
prince, I repeated, is upset because
he doesn’t like Sabyn.But I think you
know that.I watched her carefully,
trying to catch any flicker in her expression.She didn’t so much as blink.

Is he still
beating that drum? she asked.It
was an accident— Annalisse fell and
injured herself severely—with Tiamat’s help.Sabyn tried to save her, but he couldn’t.Everyone knows that but Kona.

I was reeling a little bit at the knowledge of how
Kona’s sister had died, but I wouldn’t give Hailana the satisfaction of seeing
he’d never shared the details with me.

So you knew
about Sabyn’s history with Kona, how Kona felt about him, and you decided to
have me train with him anyway? I
asked, just to clarify things.I already
knew it was true, even before she answered.Hailana did what she wanted, when she wanted to do it and to hell with
anyone else’s feelings.

I don’t make
decisions for my clan based on keeping the selkie prince happy, she told me
blandly. I’m truly sorry if my choices have caused any
stress between you.

Yeah, and if I believed that … I didn’t need to
see the sudden, cagey look in her eye to know that she wastrying to play me.Of course, a lot of what she’d done lately seemed
to have been with the express intention of causing trouble between Kona and
me.The fact that we were letting her,
that we were falling right into line with her schemes, was no one’s fault but
Kona’s and mine.I would even bet that
Sabyn was making all those crazy comments to me, not just to get under Kona’s
skin, but on direct order from her.The
straightforward approach wasn’t really Hailana’s style.

Is that all
you wanted? she asked.To find out about Kona and Sabyn?

That was my cue to leave, to get up from the desk
and walk out before this meeting descended into the free-for-all our
conferences so often became.I started
to say yes, started to get up and swim to the door, but in the end, I couldn’t
do it.There was another question
burning inside of me, one that was so important I trembled with the need to
have an answer.

Tempest?
she prompted.Is there something else?

What was my
mother’s real job for you?

I’m sorry?

You say she
was a priestess, say that she was your right hand.You also tell me that you want me to follow
in her wake, but you’ve never actually told me what she did for you.

That’s easy.Hailana’s eyes were frigid, ferocious, as
they looked me over.She did whatever I asked of her.And she kept her mouth shut about doing
it.In time, you’ll learn to do the same
thing.

That was exactly what I was afraid of.

Thanks everyone! And make sure to leave a comment to be entered to win Today's Prize Pack!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Yay! I am so excited to announce that Tempest Unleashed hits shelves today!!!! I'll be doing booksignings throughout June in San Diego, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Las Vegas and Austin, so if you live anywhere around there, come see me!!!!! I'll post the details tomorrow :)

Monday, June 4, 2012

Hi Everyone! I'm back with another excerpt from Tempest Unleashed. Hope you enjoy!!!!

The long,
deep trench that led directly to Kona’s city loomed in front of us andI barreled down it, leaving Mahina to follow
in my wake.I was swimming as fast as I
could, as fast as I ever had, so that when it emptied out into the city, I
ended up skidding across the ground much as I had the first time I’d ever come
here.I’d been rushing to make sure Kona
was okay that time, too.

I ended up stopping inches from
one of the selkies in seal form. It was laying on its side on the ocean floor
and at first I thought it was just restingBut then I understood--it was dead.

I scrambled up, backed away, and
realized I was in the middle of my worst nightmare.Kona’s city looked even worse than Coral
Straits had.Thousands of bodies
littered the ground—in seal and human form—each one a little more
horrific-looking than the last.

Oh my God!Oh my God!Ohmygod, ohmygod,ohmygod!I screamed, turning around and around, trying
to find Kona.Trying to see if he was
down here.If Tiamat had--

I don’t know if he’s here, I told Mahina, bordering on hysteria. I
can’t tell the difference between them in their seal forms.I didn’t see him like that enough. I don’t
know.I don’t—

Hey!She grabbed me by the
shoulders, gave me a firm shake.You have to get it together!She pointed at a few live selkies in human
form.They were going from body to body,
checking to see if anyone was still able to be saved. So far, it didn’t look
like they’d found anyone.Let’s go ask them if they know where the
royal family is.

It
was a massacre, I told her dully.They didn’t stand a chance.They weren’t prepared at all.Hailana could have warned them.She could have—

Don’t
think about that.Not now.She looked around grimly.We’ll
deal with Hailana’s crimes later.Let’s
go see about Kona right now.

We swam over to the selkie
healers.As we got closer, I realized
one of them was Zarek.I threw myself at
him, grabbed on to his arm.Kona? I asked, unable to formulate the
words to ask what I really needed to know.

We haven’t found him yet.He shook his head grimly.The
king—he choked up, cleared his throat.The king and queen are over there.He pointed behind him to two selkies in human
form, both of whom were being wrapped in long pieces of fabric.Tiamat had gotten her revenge on Malachai,
after all.

I gasped, stumbled, would have
fallen if Mahina hadn’t been there to hold me up.Have
you checked above? she demanded of Zarek.

We did a cursory sweep through the house—no one was there that we could
see.

He’s not up there, Mahina, I told her desperately.He’s
down here, somewhere.He’s--my voice caught on a sob as I tried to accept
the impossible.Tried to make myself
understand the inexplicable.Kona
couldn’t be dead.He just couldn’t be.

Sitting down here isn’t going to help anyone.Let’s
go check the surface, just to be sure.

Her
indomitable will firmly in place, she tugged me toward the narrow, vertical
passage that would take me to the island where Kona’s family made their
home.I didn’t fight her because,
honestly, I didn’t have the energy.Trying to make a decision was impossible, especially as an abyss of
agony yawned wide inside of me.

When we got to the passage,
Mahina pushed me forward.You go first.

I didn’t question her.I couldn’t.I just stretched my arms over my head and pushed up.There was barely enough room in the narrow,
rocky chute for me to move my arms and legs, so it was slow going, just like
always.I finally made it to the top,
bursting into the warm water of the inlet that brought me to the beach right in
front of Kona’s castle.

Mahina was right behind me, and
together we slowly made our way to shore.The beach was lined with injured people, while others attended to
them.They were all positioned close to
the water and I remembered, suddenly, how salt water healed them.Which made me wonder—just how badly, and
quickly, had those down below been injured that being immersed in the stuff had
provided almost no impact?

No one spoke to us as we made
our way over the sand to the giant castle.When we got to the front door, I knocked as loudly as I could, praying
for Kona’s butler Vernon to open it.If
he was there, I told myself, then everything would be okay.He would know where Kona was.Vernon would never let anything happen to any
of the royal family.

But then I remembered Kona’s
parents, lying dead beneath the surface, and knew that nothing was going to be
okay again.Even Vernon, with his incredible
organization skills and implacable manners, couldn’t make it so.

When no one came to answer the
knock, Mahina reached forward and pushed the door open.I walked in, glanced around.The foyer looked exactly the same as it
always did, nothing out of place, nothing broken, just like at Hailana’s.Zarek had said they’d done a cursory search
of the place, but that didn’t mean anything.Kona and his brothers and sisters could be upstairs, injured.Unable to call for help.

I ran for the stairs, took them
three at a time.Even as the logical
side of my brain told me it was impossible, that Tiamat couldn’t make it up
here, I didn’t stop.I had to check, had
to know.I hit the fourth floor in
thirty seconds flat and took off down the hall toward Kona’s room.

The door was closed and locked,
but a quick shot of energy had it buckling in front of me.I burst into Kona’s sitting room, screaming
for him, but he wasn’t there.I went
through to the bedroom, the bathroom, even his huge walk-in closet.But there was no answer.He really wasn’t hereHe really wasn’t--

I turned to tell Mahina, and as
I did I caught sight of graffiti scrawled across Kona’s bedroom wall.Written in a red liquid so dark it was
almost black, were the three feet high words: THE NEW SELKIE KING REQUESTS
YOUR PRESENCE AT THE SAHUL SHELF.

Eyes wide, heart hammering in my
chest, I forced myself to cross the room.To get up close and personal with the message I was sure I would see in
my nightmares for the rest of my life.Reaching out, I touched the letters, which were still a little wet, and
came away with the viscous liquid on my fingertips.It was thick and a little clotted and smelled
faintly of iron.

At the first whiff of it, the
room started to spin around me and my knees gave.I hit the ground, hard, but it barely
registered.I was still wrapped up in
the knowledge, in the horrified realization that I was staring at a very large
message written entirely in Kona’s blood.

Hope you enjoyed it :) To be entered to win today's summer prize pack of goodies, tell me what your favorite summer song is. Mine is definitely Summertime from Will Smith, though Smooth from Santana featuring Rob Thomas runs a close second. Have a great Monday!

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Yay! I'm so excited! Tempest Unleashed hits the shelves on Tuesday!!!! It's about time as it feels like I've been waiting for this release date forever. In honor of it, I'll be posting a snippet from it every day this week-- along with giving away a prize pack of fun goodies every day. All you have to do is leave a comment to be entered to win!

So, with no further ado, my first snippet from Tempest Unleashed:

So, I asked Mahina as casually as I
could.What am I going to be dealing with here?S

She paused, a forkful of sea lettuce
halfway to her mouth.With Tiamat?

No,
with the climate in Australia.It
was my turn to roll my eyes.Of course with Tiamat.I’ve already met the Lusca, I said,
referring to the huge sea monster thing that had ripped my mother apart almost
a year ago.But what other creatures does she have lying in wait?

I
don’t really know.Mahina thought
for a minute.There are stories, of course, but nothing that I know for certain to be
real.A lot of the stories are just
mythology, after all.

I refrained from mentioning that
both Tiamat and the Lusca were considered mythological, and therefore fake,
creatures by most of the world.The fact
that we knew the truth didn’t make their existence any more believable to most
of the population.

That’s
okay.I still want to know, even if they
are fake.Better to be prepared, you
know?

Oh.Right.She paused, took a deep breath, looked around, as if just saying their
names out loud was enough to draw them to us.It wasn’t, of course, but when a huge shark came out of nowhere and swam
so close that its tail actually flicked against me as it went by, I almost reconsidered
my stance on that.

Kona was always defending sharks,
always telling me that I had nothing to fear from them.But the last time I’d swum with them—when my
tail had been bleeding—had almost been my
last experience with them.It was
hard to forget nearly being eaten by a great white.

Well,
it’s not like I have a lot of up-close-and-personal knowledge of Tiamat, but I
can tell you what I’ve heard, Mahina began reluctantly.The
Lusca is never far from her- you saw that.But she has other creatures that work for her as well.The shark-men, the Bunyip, Ceto and Scylla,
and, of course,the Leviathan.

She looked at me expectantly, but I
couldn’t respond.It was like everything
she said after shark-men was in Greek.What’s the Leviathan? I asked. They called whales leviathans, maybe she had a
huge whale that did her bidding?But how
menacing could a whale be?Most of them
ate plankton, for God’s sake.

The
Leviathan is a sea monster, kind of like the Lusca.But it’s more of a dragon.He’s the most powerful creature in the ocean,
or so everyone says.

So,
why does he listen to Tiamat?

Oh,
I don’t think he actually listens to her.More like they have a mutually beneficial relationship.If she brings him out for this, then it’s
because they’re both going to get something from it.She snorted.Then again, if she
brings him out of this, we might as well forget about rescuing Kona now.Everything in all of the oceans knows you
don’t mess with the Leviathan.

Terrific.
I blew out a long breath.And the rest of those things you talked
about?

She sighed, ran a hand through her
hair.They’re sea monsters.Ceto is
pretty much chaos personified— her favorite pastime is sinking ships and
bringing down planes that come too close to her lair.

Where’s
her lair? Iasked warily.

It’s
actually in the Atlantic—between Bermuda and Puerto Rico.

I choked on a piece of Dulse.You
mean, the Bermuda Triangle? I asked incredulously.

I
don’t think it’s actually a triangle, Mahina answered.More
like a rectangle.Why?

I started to explain about the myths
and lore associated with that part of the ocean, but decided it could wait for
another day.I had more important things
to do right now.

As we ate, I continued to question
her about Tiamat’s allies.Scylla, it
turned out, was another sea monster, one with two snake like heads and the
power to create whirlpools and sinkholes wherever she was. And bunyips, while
not as frightening as the three sea monsters Tiamat seemed to have at her beck
and call, didn’t seem like anything to fool around with either.Water demons who lived near Australia and who
ate human and mermaid flesh¸ they were fanged and vicious and frightening as
hell.

Terrific.Why had I wanted to know what I was swimming
into again?

So, what do you think? And what are your big plans for the summer? I'm spending much of the summer in California, hanging with my boys and my mom and doing a book tour for Tempest Unleashed. I'll post the dates soon, but if you're in San Diego, L.A., Vegas or Albuquerque (or Austin) come see Tera Lynn Childs and me as we sweep the Southwest with Mer Madness!!! Leave a comment to be entered to win today's prize pack!!!!!